Текст книги "Moonlight on Nightingale Way"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“I guess that means you’re sure.” His voice rumbled with amusement.

I grinned up at him. “Baby, every day with you is a vacation.”

His eyes warmed, filling with tenderness.

“Where are Hannah and Marco?” I heard my mum say loudly.

“Dunno,” Will answered cheerily.

My eyes widened. “I’ll slip out first and let you…” I gestured to his hard-on.

He closed his eyes. “My fault for choosing a hot wife.”

I chuckled and slipped past him as he moved his back from the door. “I’ll tell them you’ll be down in a minute.” I opened the door and looked back at him. “Uncle Gio. Naked.”

Marco cursed and threw a hand cloth at me, and I laughed, fleeing the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind me. “I bet it works!” I yelled through the door, and laughed all the way downstairs.

Upon my arrival into the dining room, Dylan patted the seat next to him. “Hannah.”

As always, my chest burst with feeling as I walked over to join my stepson. Dylan adored his dad, and of course he loved his mum to bits, but I was pleased to have earned his love over the last few years and the coveted position of being the person he most wanted to sit beside at mealtimes. Just as I was about to sit down, Sophia decided she’d missed me in the last ten minutes and refused to sit anywhere but on my lap. It was clear she hadn’t realized that at four years old she was now much bigger than she was at two. But I didn’t mind. Mum had already warned me there would come a time when Sophia wouldn’t want to be seen with me, let alone sit on my lap, so I was determined to soak up her attention as much as possible.

The skin on my neck prickled and I knew my husband had entered the room. I looked over as he walked in with Adam, Adam holding Bray’s hand while Marco carried Jarrod.

Marco took his seat beside me, shooting me a look that promised retribution later for our moment upstairs. Jarrod immediately reached for a lock of Sophia’s hair, and she turned and tickled his neck in response, eliciting a giggle from him.

“Everyone ready to eat?” Mum asked the table, and as I glanced around at my family, I felt strangely emotional. I looked back at Marco, who seemed to sense it and was watching me carefully.

Like he always did. My feelings were a number-one priority to him, and he never let me forget it.

I thought of what he’d asked me upstairs.

“I am so sure,” I whispered, and my husband reached out his free hand to squeeze my knee under the table.

Olivia

It was too quiet. Much, much too quiet in the house.

I was snuggled up on a huge armchair in the snug sitting room (the smaller of our two sitting rooms), where I was reading a book by an author Grace worked with. I got to a steamy part that made me flush and looked over at my gorgeous husband, who was lying on the couch reading a graphic novel (because he’d never stopped being a big kid).

My intention was to jump him when the thought occurred to me that either one of our girls might come running in and interrupt us. That’s when I realized the house was much, much too quiet.

“Where are the girls?” I said to Nate.

He turned his head on the fat cushion he was resting against and peered at me over the glasses he now had to wear. He hated them. I thought they made him look adorable. Which was exactly why he hated them. “I thought they were in the living room watching a film.”

“And that usually comes with singing or dancing or squealing of some sort.” I got up off of the chair, leaving my book in my place. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

“Baby, can you get me a coffee while you’re up?”

“Your lack of concern is wonderful.” I rolled my eyes at him and disappeared out of the room.

What I found in the living room made me draw to a stop with a small gasp.

Playing on the large television screen Nate had mounted on our wall above the fireplace was our wedding DVD.

Lily and January sat on the couch, quiet as mice as they watched their mom and dad dance at their reception.

I stared at the image, too, at the way that Nate held me close and gazed into my eyes like no one else was in the room with us.

Clearly the girls were mesmerized by this, watching it as if they were watching a Disney Princess movie.

I felt heat at my back seconds before arms slid around my waist and drew me back against a hard chest. I relaxed against Nate, covering his arms with my own. He nuzzled my neck and whispered in my ear, “Good movie choice.”

I grinned. “I haven’t watched it in ages,” I whispered back.

Lily turned, having heard us. She wore a look of apology. “Oh. We just found it.”

January glanced over her shoulder at us. “Mummy, your dress is so pretty.”

“Do you still have it?” Lily asked, eyes bright just at the thought of getting to wear it.

“I do. I’ll show it to you, but you have to be really careful with it, okay?”

They nodded solemnly, my two little angels.

“Daddy, you’re wearing a kilt there!” Lily giggled.

“I am wearing a kilt,” he acknowledged as he shuffled me forward as if I were his puppet, making the girls giggle harder.

“Did you like wearing a kilt?”

He squeezed me harder. “I don’t know. Did I like wearing a kilt?”

I shook my head. “You complained about it the whole day.”

Lily paused the DVD and turned around on the couch to face us. Like always, January did what her big sister did. “Would you rather wear a kilt or a nappy?” She grinned like she’d thought of the funniest thing ever.

I shook with laughter, wondering if Nate regretted introducing our “would you rather”

conversations to our children.

“Hmm.” He actually pretended to ponder it. “I think I’d rather wear a kilt.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s warmer and less humiliating.”

Lily giggled again, but Jan wrinkled her nose. “What does humil—humanaiting mean?”

“Humiliating,” Lily corrected her. “It means embarrassing.”

My smart, smart little cookie.

“Oh.” Jan laughed, the dimples she’d inherited from her father flashing. “Yeah, a nappy would make you look silly, Daddy.”

“I don’t know.”

I glanced over my shoulder to look at him. “A nappy, really?”

He grinned, his own dimples flashing. “I could pull off a nappy.”

“Honey, I love you, and I think you are very handsome, but not even you could pull off a man nappy.”

He snorted. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Mum, would you rather be married to Daddy or the man from the washing-up liquid commercial?” Lily grinned mischievously.

I bugged my eyes out at her as my kid gave me away.

Nate gently eased me around to face him. “What’s this?” he teased.

I shrugged sheepishly. “He’s very good-looking.”

“So?” He raised an eyebrow. “Me or this washing-up guy?”

Now it was my turn to pretend to muse over it. “The washing-up guy does do the dishes.”

“We have a dishwasher.”

“He cleans kitchen countertops too.”

“Hey, we had a deal. I give you two cute kids, you clean the kitchen.”

“That’s a pretty good deal, Mum.” Lily smiled.

I made a face at Nate, who couldn’t contain his laughter. “She’s got you there.”

“She’s not got me there. I did the hard work to produce these two angels. That doesn’t make sense at all. If anyone should be cleaning countertops, it’s you.”

“Mum, would you rather —”

“No, my turn.” I bent down as far as I could with Nate’s arms wrapped around me and brushed my nose over Lily’s and then Jan’s. They both giggled and waved me away. “Would you rather live in the sewers with enchanted animals and pretty elves and mystical sewer cities, or in a beautiful, peaceful forest with a bunch of pretty princesses and charming princes?”

Our girls looked at each other for a second as they contemplated it and then turned in unison and said, “Sewers!”

“Good answer.” I nodded in approval.

“That was a tough one.” Nate was pensive. “I was really having a hard time coming up with an answer to that one.” He put a hand to his heart in a dramatic fashion. “Live in the dirty sewers with a bunch of lovable weirdos or traverse a beautiful forest with a gorgeous princess. It’s tough. Really tough.”

“Daddy!” The girls laughed at his joking, their giggles coming harder.

“You’re lucky you’re adorable in those glasses.” I pressed into him, laughing when his eyes narrowed at the word “adorable.” “Or I might just take offense to the whole gorgeous princess thing.”

“I wouldn’t,” he whispered. “She was dull as dishwater and kept falling asleep.”

“Sleeping Beauty!” Jan shouted, having overhead. “Can we watch Sleeping Beauty?”

“Yeah!” Lily shouted, dashing across the room to our DVD cabinet.

Nate looked from them to me and snorted. “Our wedding DVD has been bumped for Sleeping Beauty.”

I pulled him away from the girls, snuggling into him once I had him at the doorway. When I was sure the girls couldn’t hear, I whispered, “Perhaps there is something to the whole Sleeping Beauty thing.”

His hands flexed on my hips, his gaze turning low-lidded and hot. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’m thinking sexual fantasy. Tonight.” I brushed my lips over his. “Your choice? Do I play a damsel-in-distress fairy-tale style, or do we go with something a little more sci-fi?” I grinned suggestively.

“Never change,” he whispered hoarsely. “You are absolutely fucking perfect the way you are.”

“What are you talking about?” Lily called over to us nosily.

“Your dad is just remembering why he married me,” I called back, and he grinned, those irresistible dimples flashing again, like they were wont to do at least thirty times a day.

Johanna

“Belle loves it here.” I snuggled into Cam’s side as the breeze from the water sent goose bumps up all over me. “I should have put on a jacket.”

In response, Cam opened his and burrowed me into him, closing the jacket over me as far as it would go. “We should make an effort to come here more often.”

I nodded, watching Belle play on the beach with our friends, Lyn and Peetie’s daughter, Sara. Lyn and Cam’s mum, Helena, pretended to chase them, and their giggles floated up into the air to join the caws of the seagulls above our heads.

I always loved Cam’s hometown of Longniddry. I loved the nearby beach we were on, and I loved that my kid loved her grandparents so much. I loved that she was having the kind of life I’d always dreamed of having as a child.

“Cole and Shannon will be enjoying the sun,” Cam said, a smile in his voice.

Belle shrieked as she spun out of Helena’s reach only to go running straight into her Grandpa Anderson. He laughed and swooped her up into the air, and she giggled and cried out as he spun her around before releasing her to the sand again. Sara demanded the same treatment, and Peetie obliged as Lyn and the grandparents looked on. I followed Belle with my eyes as she ran on ahead a little.

As I gazed at her, she morphed into a little boy with strawberry blond hair, looking at the water in awe. It was a memory of the day I’d jumped on a bus with him and taken him to Balloch so he could see the loch for the first time. He’d been six; I was only fourteen.

“I still can’t believe my wee brother is married.”

“He’s twenty-seven, Jo,” Cam reminded me gently.

“He’ll always be wee to me,” I whispered, feeling a little emotional. “You’ll get it with Belle.

She’ll always be six years old to you.”

“Baby, are you all right?” He ducked his head to look at my face.

“It’s silly.” I shook my head, blinking back tears. “I just feel like… ever since I got everything I ever wanted, time has just sped up. Belle will be in high school before we know it. I love being a mum. I love us as parents. I don’t want that to stop.”

“It will never stop, Jo.”

“I know, but look at Cole. It doesn’t stop, but they don’t need you the same way after a while.”

Cam was silent a moment, I think surprised by my sadness.

But like always, he had the ability to surprise me too. “Do you…? Do you want another baby?”

I tensed against him, afraid to look him in the eye and give myself away. “You’re forty this year, Cam.”

“And you’re only coming on thirty-five. There’s still time… if that’s what you want?”

Hope began to bubble up within me as I turned to look at him. For months this had been pressing on me, but Cameron had never given any hint that he wanted to have another kid. It would be more financial stress. It would mean maybe having to look for another place to live. But I really wanted another baby. I wanted Belle to be a big sister like I had been, and to have her little brother or sister look up to her the way that Cole had looked up to me.

“Would you want another baby?”

Cam searched my eyes, a small smile starting to play on his lips. “Yeah, I’d want another baby. I just didn’t think it was something you wanted. You usually tell me when you want something, Jo.” He was grinning now as he saw the excitement enter my eyes.

“I really want another child,” I whispered. “I really do.”

He nodded slowly. “Then we’ll start trying.”

“Just like that? No discussion?”

“It won’t be easy.” He stared off down the beach. The others had gotten farther ahead of us, and Belle and Sara were skipping down the beach hand in hand now. “But it’s worth it.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding on tight. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

I kissed him, a long, slow, sweet kiss filled with every ounce of love and gratitude I had within me that after all these years Cameron MacCabe still had the ability to make me the happiest woman on the planet. Tears trembled on my eyelashes, and when he broke the kiss they splashed onto my cheeks.

Cam swiped at them with his thumb. “Happy tears?”

“Very.”

He grinned and hugged me tighter. “This will be fun.”

“Adding another kid to the tribe?” I sniffled, chuckling.

“I meant the constant sex… but yeah, that too.”

My laughter rang out down the beach as he tugged my hand and led me toward our family. At the sound of my laugher, Belle, blond hair flying wildly around her smiling face, immediately dashed back up the beach toward us.

Ellie

Leaning silently against the doorway of my mum’s kitchen, I studied Adam’s back as he stood alone at the sink washing the cups and mugs that couldn’t go in the dishwasher.

For not the first time I thanked God I married a man who didn’t mind kitchen duty.

“I can feel you there, you know,” he said quietly, the words tinged with amusement.

I smiled and stepped into the room. “Hannah and Marco are leaving in a bit.”

“We should probably head home too. I think Jarrod has worn out Bray.”

Slipping up behind him, I slid my arms around him, crossing them over his chest as I leaned my cheek against his shoulder. “I was thinking…”

“Hmm, that’s never a good thing.”

“I’m serious.”

Adam snorted. “So am I.”

I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me do it. “You’ll like this line of thought. I promise.”

In answer he stopped drying a mug and turned so I had to rearrange my arms around his shoulders as he drew me chest against chest to him. I stared into his dark eyes, seeing a glimmer of discontentment in them. I’d seen that look a few times now over the past few weeks, and it was starting to make me anxious. It was only after we’d booked the kids’ holiday to Disney World that I began to suspect what was wrong.

“I’ve been neglecting you,” I whispered, brushing his hair from his face.

There were a few wrinkles around his eyes that didn’t used to be there, but they only made him look rugged and interesting. Bloody men. Why was it so many of them got better-looking with age while we women had to work our arses off to stay looking young?

“Ellie?”

I shook my head, focusing. “I’ve been working on my paper, and I’ve been spending all my free time with the kids, and you’ve been busy. You and I haven’t had any ‘us time.’”

He nodded, something like relief entering his expression, and I was suffused with guilt.

“You thought I hadn’t noticed?” I said.

“Like you said, we’ve been busy.” He shrugged.

“Adam, I’ve noticed we haven’t been on a date in months. I’ve noticed we haven’t had time for more than a quickie in months.” I pressed into him. “You have to tell me when you’re unhappy.”

“Els.” He wrapped his arms even tighter around me. “I’m not unhappy. I’ve just missed you. I never wanted to be like my parents and ignore my kids, but I also would like some time with my wife every now and then.”

“Me too.” I smiled slowly. “That’s why I asked Mum and Clark to take the kids tonight. We’ll pop home and get them some overnight stuff, bring it back here, and then you and I can do whatever the hell we want.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Are you kidding? Because if you’re kidding, it’s really cruel.”

I giggled. “I’m not kidding. Just you and me, sweetheart.”

He kissed me, a soft kiss that promised more, and then he pulled back to whisper against my mouth, “We’ll drop off the kids’ stuff and then we’re going home so I can fuck you as hard as I want and you can come as loudly as you want.”

A streak of arousal shot straight between my legs, and I nodded, speechless.

His eyes heated. “Let’s go now.”

I grinned and nodded. “I have another present for you.”

“Please say see-through lingerie.”

Laughing, I shook my head. “Better.”

He looked doubtful that there was anything better than see-through lingerie.

“We’ll do Disney World with the boys in the summer and have a ball with them.” Because as much as he teased about the predicted chaos of the upcoming holiday, he loved hanging out with his boys.

His real issue had been that he never got to see me… alone. “And afterward, you and I are going to Joss and Braden’s villa at Lake Como for four nights. They said we could have it, and Mum and Clark are happy to look after the boys.”

Adam stared at me a moment as if in disbelief. When he realized I was serious, he kissed me again, harder this time. We broke the kiss to gasp for breath, and he said, voice hoarse, “I fucking love you.”

“Kind of hard to hate me, sweetie,” I teased.

“You’re not joking,” he grunted, backing me up toward the door. “Home, kids’ stuff, back here, home, screwing like teenagers. Now.”

Well, he didn’t need to tell me twice.

Joss

“Mum, are you writing?”

My fingers stilled on the keys of my laptop at the sound of my eldest’s voice behind me. “Is this the room in which I write?” I said without turning around.

“You didn’t look like you were writing.”

I turned in my chair to find Beth hovering in the now-open doorway of my office. “Did the closed door and the sound of keys tapping not give it away?”

My eleven-year-old grimaced in a way that was so like me. “Dad’s with Ellie, Luke is playing a video game, and I’m bored.”

“I thought you were reading.”

“I was, but my book is boring. Plus… it is a Saturday, you know.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me.

I felt that glare hit me in the chest and a little ache spread out from it. I tried my best to balance my writing and my life with my kids and with Braden, but clearly sometimes I got it wrong. “Go and get Luke ready and I will go get your dad. We’ll go out for lunch and to see a movie. Sound good?”

“I really shouldn’t have to drop these hints about how to be a parent, Mum.” She raised her eyebrow at me in this seriously schoolmarmish way. I honestly didn’t know where she picked up this crap.

I raised my eyebrow right back at her. “Okay, smart-ass. Message received.”

She grinned triumphantly and dashed off to get her brother.

I chuckled as I saved my document and shut down my computer. My kid was getting too smart for her own good. It was difficult to rein in the smart-assness, however, when she had a mother like me and a father like Braden.

Finding said father in the sitting room, I stopped in the doorway to stare at him for a moment.

Braden’s long and still deliciously well-kept body was sprawled over our couch. Our baby girl, Ellie, was sprawled across Braden’s chest. They were both sleeping.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started taking pictures.

“What are you doing?” Braden mumbled sleepily.

I looked up from my phone to see him rubbing his eyes with one hand and stroking Ellie’s back with the other.

“Putting a photo of you and Ellie sleeping on Instagram. My readers will love it.”

Looking more awake now, he frowned. “What?”

“Didn’t you know, babe? You’re their favorite book boyfriend come to life.”

“You’ve been sharing photos of me with your readers?” he grumbled sleepily.

“I had to get some use out of you. You’ve increased my social media followers. Oh look. Twenty likes already.” I grinned over the top of my phone at him, and his eyes narrowed.

“You owe me for that.”

My body warmed just at the thought. “What did you have in mind?”

He smiled, slow, wicked, and sweet. “I’ll think of something.”

“Will I like it?”

“Are you flirting with me while our child is sleeping in the room?”

I strode over to them. “She can’t hear me,” I whispered, bending down to my haunches to stroke her soft hair. “She’s out.”

“I thought you were writing.”

I turned my attention from Ellie to Braden, falling like always into his pale blue gaze. “Beth misses me. Although she didn’t put it quite like that.”

“She wouldn’t.” He smiled affectionately. “She’s too much like her mum to admit outright when she’s missing someone. Always has to wrap up the feeling in sarcasm.”

I chuckled. “It makes life entertaining for you.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way, babe.”

Leaning over, I pressed my lips to his, intending it to be a soft kiss, but like always, it turned deeper.

“Yuck!” Beth’s voice broke us apart. “It’s bad enough doing that in front of me, but in front of Ellie?”

At her loud entrance, Ellie stirred on Braden’s chest and began to whimper at being awoken.

“Beth, your sister was sleeping,” I admonished.

She immediately looked guilty and crept on her tiptoes into the room as if her now-silent entrance would undo waking up her sister. Coming right up to my side, she knelt down and put her hand on Ellie’s back. “It’s okay, baby girl,” she said softly. “We’re going to go out. You want to go out?”

Ellie reached sleepily for her sister, and Beth took her into her arms with ease and stood up. “I’ll go get her changed.”

I tugged on the hem of Beth’s skirt. “Thank you, baby.”

Once they were gone, Braden sat up, running his hands through his mussed hair. “We’re going out?”

I nodded and sat down on his lap, mussing his hair even more with my hands. “Beth was bored.”

He frowned as he wrapped his arm around my waist. “I could have taken the kids out, left you here to write.”

“No.” I kissed him again. “Beth was making a point. I need to spend more time with you and the kids. I want to spend more time with you.”

“And tonight with me?” He brushed his mouth teasingly over mine.

“Every night with you,” I whispered back, and he kissed me harder.

“Yuck!”

We broke apart this time to find Luke standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Problem?” I arched my eyebrow at my eight-year-old.

“Yeah.” He said it like it should be obvious. “You’re not supposed to do that in front of your kids.

That’s what Beth says. She says it’s, like, a rule.”

Braden chuckled. “Son, the only ones making rules in this house are Mum and Dad. Got that?”

He nodded obediently but still looked consternated. “Perhaps it should be a rule?”

I bit back laughter at the hope in the question.

“Believe me, bud,” Braden said, squeezing my hip for emphasis. “That’s the one thing that’s least likely to become a rule in this house.”

“But there’s a chance?”

I turned my face to Braden’s neck to hide my grin from Luke.

“No. There is zero chance.”

“When I turn eighteen, will I be able to make rules?”

Sensing where this was going, Braden chuckled. “Son, when you’re eighteen, a no-kissing-girls rule will be the last thing you want to put in place.”

“Maybe. But a no-kissing-Mum rule will definitely be put in place.” He disappeared from the doorway and we heard him yell for his sister, probably going in search of her to complain about us.

“They’re ganging up on us,” I murmured ominously, staring after our son.

“Oh, they can try.” Braden turned my face so he could kiss me again. When he pulled back, he grinned. “But they won’t succeed.”

I grinned at the humor in his eyes, the humor I shared, the connection we shared that got us through absolutely anything, and I knew always would. “We’ve got this.”

“We’ve got this,” Braden agreed, and then he kissed me once more as Luke walked back into the room, and our laughter bubbled against each other ’s lips at the sound of our son’s outrage.

Grace

“You have to be nicer to Charlie,” I whispered in Logan’s ear as we walked hand in hand into the rugby stadium.

Maia walked ahead of us, clasping tightly to Charlie’s hand as Chloe and Ed chatted to them about something.

Logan grunted. “I was nice.”

“You barely said two words to him during the taxi ride here.”

“What do you want me to say to him?” He frowned. “The only things I can think to say to him involve threats.”

“He was a perfect gentleman with her at the wedding the other day. He’s always a perfect gentleman.”

As if he knew we were talking about him, Charlie threw us a look over his shoulder and blanched.

Tall and lanky, he was cute in a very boyish kind of way. He was smart, funny, and stylish. He was wearing a pair of thick-framed black glasses that really suited his angular face, and he was dressed in a white shirt, a black waistcoat, and black tapered suit trousers with a chain dangling from one side of his waistband to the other.

“You could ask him about his band. Maia said the boys booked a gig.”

“A band.” Logan shook his head. “He went from Mr. Good Guy to Guy in a Band.”

“I thought you’d be over this by now.”

“I’m not over it because the longer they’re together and the more she falls for the little bugger, the more chance he has of violating my baby girl.”

I squeezed his hand. “You have to let her grow up and trust her to act responsibly.”

His face snapped toward me. “What do you know? Has it happened already?”

“Oh dear God, fatherhood has made you crazy.” I sighed. “Let’s just talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… maybe —”

“Hurry up, slow coaches!” Chloe yelled back at us, grinning.

I rolled my eyes at her, but Logan and I picked up speed and followed them down the stands. Juno waited in first-row seating for us.

“Hey, you.” I hugged her close. “How are you?”

“Fine.” She grinned at us. “Excited for the game.”

“Who are you supporting, Grace?” Ed teased me.

It was a Scotland versus England game.

I made a face. “Funny.”

“No, seriously?”

“I’m supporting Aidan,” I huffed, and sat down with Juno on one side and Logan on the other.

“Aka Scotland.”

“Just checking.”

“Chloe, please punch your husband for me.”

“Ow!”

I looked down the chairs to her and grinned. “Thank you.”

She winked at me and ignored Ed’s grumbling.

“So is Aidan ready?” Logan said to Juno.

“As he’ll ever be.”

“The place is packed,” Charlie noted from beside Maia. Maia was seated next to her dad, placing Charlie on her other side. Smart girl.

“It is that,” Logan said, surprising me even more when he asked, “You a big rugby fan, Charlie?”

Charlie and Maia looked just as stunned as I felt. Charlie collected himself. “Not really, sir.”

“Me neither. But it’s different when you have someone to support.”

“Oh, definitely,” he hurried to agree. “Aidan’s a cool guy.”

Logan stared at him. “I’m a cool guy, Charlie.”

Maia’s boyfriend swallowed hard. “Of course, sir.”

I groaned. “You almost had it. Then you ruined it.”

Logan grinned unrepentantly.

“Did anyone bring any food?” Chloe yelled.

“Nope.”

“Drink?”

“Nope.”

Chloe threw us a disgusted look. “You did well, guys.”

“Go and get us our usual drinks,” Juno called down the row to her. “We’ve still got time.”

My friend pulled out her purse.

Logan nudged me with his shoulder. “Want anything to drink?”

I bit my lip and stared up at him. “Maybe just water.”

“You don’t want a beer or wine?”

I shook my head.

Juno scowled. “We always get a beer to salute Aidan as he comes out.”

“I know. I just don’t feel like having one today.”

She grunted. “What? Are you pregnant?”

I blushed so hard my face felt like it was on fire.

“Oh my God, you’re pregnant!”

“WHAT?” Maia yelled.

Logan was silent as he stared at me in shock.

“What? What did I miss?” I heard Chloe ask.

“Grace is pregnant!” Maia cried out, and she at least sounded happy.

“Logan?” I reached for his hand. “Are you okay?”

“You’re pregnant?” he said, his voice low. “Pregnant, pregnant?”

I giggled inappropriately. “Is there any other kind of pregnant?”

“There’s a pregnant pause,” Juno supplied helpfully.

“Are you a little bit pregnant or pregnant, pregnant?” Logan said, absolutely ignoring everyone but me.

“A whole lot pregnant.”

I jumped in surprise as he lunged at me, hauling me off my seat as he stood up. My feet left the ground and I clung to him as he held me tight, his face buried in my neck.

Eventually he lowered me to the ground and pulled back to cup my face in his hands.

“I take it you’re happy, then?” I smiled, tears shining in my eyes.

“Understatement, babe,” he whispered.

“I want a hug!” Maia pushed up against us, wrapping her arms around us both in the tight confines of the row.

I laughed as Logan slid an arm around us both and grinned like a little boy.

“Uh, move over, people!” Chloe huffed, ducking under his arm to get to me. “Let the best friend through.”

“This really has nothing to do with you, Chloe,” Logan teased her as she snuggled into me.

“Oh boy.” She shook her head at him as if she felt sorry for him. “You really need to learn faster than you’re learning. The best friend… that would be moi” – she gestured to herself – “is always included in everything that is not the actual sex.”

“And that’s the moment ruined for me.” Maia wrinkled her nose.

Logan snorted. “I think it’s just ruined, period.”

Chloe stuck her nose up in the air. “I’m not listening to your negativity. I’m going to go and get water for my beautiful and glowing best friend. I thought there was something different about you tonight.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. Sure you did.”

She pushed back out of the circle and grabbed for Ed, dragging him out of the row and back up the stairs in search of drinks.

After hugging Juno and Charlie, I sat back down on my seat, this time with Logan’s arm around my shoulders.

We were silent as we all took in the significance of the news and of the moment.

And then Logan said, “Best rugby game ever.”